Learning to halt in upcoming teacher strike

CATHOLIC school teachers are planning to make their voices heard - not by yelling but by doing absolutely nothing for 30 minutes.

Members of the Independent Education Union of Australia - Queensland and Northern Territory will stop work on Tuesday, November 19, from 9am to 9.30am.

More than 7000 Queensland Catholic school teachers and support staff from 197 Catholic schools are authorised to take strike action as part of protected industrial action.

IEUA-QNT branch secretary Terry Burke said strike action was the last resort for employees, but Queensland Catholic school employers had left them no choice.

"The employers effectively want to throw out the window a 30-year commitment to show professional respect to their staff, through professional rates of pay," Mr Burke said.

"Maintaining wage parity with the state sector is critical as the one-off payment of $1250 is part of the wage outcome in that sector just as much as the percentage increases."

The strike announcement comes almost a week after teachers started work bans to call for extra pay, more secure contracts and equality with state school teachers.

"Until the employers agree to make this payment and put in place meaningful interventions to deal with the work intensification IEUA-QNT members will continue their protected industrial action," he said.

He said union members were feeling the professional and personal impacts of workload and work intensification and claimed employers had no plan to deal with the "insidious issue".

"We are talking about the health and wellbeing of our teachers and school support staff - without a plan to care for them the employers are putting the future of quality education in our schools at significant risk," Mr Burke said.

Representatives for Catholic school teachers and employers have been meeting since March as part of ongoing negotiations.